Coping with the new Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), European fisheries face challenges and demands such as 1. transitioning to reducing discards and bringing all catches to land obligatorily (“landings obligation”: Common Fisheries Policy reform, EU Regulation 1380/2013) or 2. reduce their negative impact and bycatch of marine top predator populations (e.g. cetaceans). The complexity of these problems and the necessity of cutting across science and society boundaries, make it necessary to follow a multi-actor approach, whereby scientists, fisheries technologists, fish producers and NGOs work collaboratively to provide the scientific and technical basis to achieve these goals. Results and objectives of ongoing projects at CCMAR to minimize unwanted catches (fish and cetaceans) and/or improve survivorship after discarding in the Algarve Portuguese purse seine will be presented and discussed. Developed ideas and experimental outputs will be used to inform best practice and propose technical and management solutions as also mitigation in the Portuguese Purse Seine Fishery along the coast.

Short CV

Ana Marçalo graduated in General Biology at the University of Massachusetts Darthmouth, USA. While in the US she obtained the fisheries observer certification from NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Services and became a fisheries observer for all types of gears. Back to Portugal, she worked as a fisheries observer onboard purse seiners and also as a researcher at IPMA (Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere) conducting work on capturing, transporting and acclimating sardines in captivity for laboratory experiments. She obtained her PhD in 2009 from the Universidade do Algarve with the thesis untitled “Sardine (Sardina pilchardus) delayed mortality associated with purse seine slipping”. As a post-doc fellow at CESAM-University of Aveiro, she studied the interaction of cetaceans and other protected species (i.e. marine turtles) with fisheries along the Portuguese mainland coast. At that time, she also coordinated the cetacean and sea turtle local stranding network operating along the Algarve coast and was in charge of small cetacean diet analysis and mitigation trials to decrease conflicts between fisheries and cetaceans in the area. She participated in several research projects in collaboration with public and private entities mainly related with: acclimating sardines in captivity for research purposes, studying methods to decrease purse seine discards and delayed mortality of pelagic fish, cetacean interactions with Portuguese fisheries and mitigation to reduce bycatch. Since 2010 she is the Portuguese participant at the ICES Working Group on Bycatch of Protected Species (WGBYC). Currently she is a post doc researcher at CCMAR being a team member in the Project MINOUW in the case study related to the “Algarve purse seine”.